Employer Branding - A Quick Overview

Posted By: Thomas Shaw, 10:14pm Monday 02 March 2009

When planning your employer brand strategy, it is helpful to determine where your brand is in the minds of the job seeker (or potential job seeker) and adjust your messaging strategy accordingly. Visualize each stage of the recruitment process in their shoes and how would your brand stack up against a competitor - who would you choose?

Do you have a brand not very well known to the talent marketplace?

Is your industry not very well known among the potential talent pool?

If so, you need to create awareness among the marketplace about your organization and your industry - your name, logo, career site, and message need to be in front of the audience.

Perhaps you have a well-known brand, but a potential employee doesn’t know how their skills would be useful at your organisation; in that case, the focus should be on helping the target audience familiarise itself with you as an employer.

An attractive internal and external employer brand is a base for successful operations. It diminishes turnover and recruitment costs. Most important though, it ensures your supply of strategic talent for growing your business, for efficiency and for productivity.

Research - Is the starting point for any employer branding strategy. By undertaking research, you gain valuable insight and data points on how your brand is perceived internally and externally, which will give you the full picture of the current position of your employer brand.

Employer Value Proposition - Consists of a set of associations and offerings that characterize an employer and differentiates it from competitors.

Communication Plan - Once the EVP is determined, it is necessary to devise a plan on the way in which it is communicated internally and externally. The communications plan will outline the appropriate communication channels to reach the target groups based on the stage your organisation is in the recruitment funnel, and how to align the messaging with other corporate communication.

Communication Material - After the communication plan has been finalised, it is time to define the materials based on your stage in the recruitment funnel, i.e. the pictures, words, copy and other specific mediums to be used.

Action - Is the final step. This is when you implement, measure and adjust your activities, based on all steps above. This needs to be done on a regular basis. Both employers and job seekers change – in their value propositions, preference of communication channels and career choices.